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Over a dozen different bags of coffee beans arranged on a wood table outdoors. Credit: Reviewed / Valerie Li Stack

The Best Coffee Subscriptions of 2024

Recommendations are independently chosen by Reviewed's editors. Purchases made through the links below may earn us and our publishing partners a commission.

Over a dozen different bags of coffee beans arranged on a wood table outdoors. Credit: Reviewed / Valerie Li Stack

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Reviewed's mission is to help you buy the best stuff and get the most out of what you already own. Our team of product experts thoroughly vet every product we recommend to help you cut through the clutter and find what you need.

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1
Editor's Choice Product image of Intelligentsia
Best Overall

Intelligentsia

Check Price at Intelligentsia

This popular coffee subscription box brings you the freshest roasted beans right to your door. Read More

Pros

  • Roasted to order
  • Fast shipping and delivery
  • Detailed coffee information

Cons

  • Lack of customization
2
Product image of Driftaway Coffee
Best Blind Tasting

Driftaway Coffee

Check Price at Driftaway Coffee

Driftaway guides you through the coffee tasting experience with their extremely accurate profile notes, which makes them unique. Read More

Pros

  • Extremely accurate tasting notes
  • Helpful customer support
  • Affordable

Cons

  • Slow shipping
3
Editor's Choice Product image of Counter Culture Coffee
Best For Single-Origin Beans

Counter Culture Coffee

Check Price at Counter Culture Coffee

This speedy coffee subscription service can guarantee freshly roasted, specialty coffee for newcomers and coffee experts. Read More

Pros

  • Short off-roast time
  • Affordable
  • Transparent business practice

Cons

  • Lack of roasters selection
4
Product image of Peace Coffee
Best Gift

Peace Coffee

Check Price at Peace Coffee

This coffee brand offers customizable subscriptions and a wide range of roasts to choose from, plus it's great for gifting. Read More

Pros

  • Customizable subscriptions
  • Helpful quiz
  • Wide variety of roasts and grind types

Cons

  • No roast date provided
5
Editor's Choice Product image of Angels' Cup

Angels' Cup

Check Price at Angels' Cup

Angels' Cup Black Box is an excellent gift for those who appreciate coffee. Read More

Pros

  • Interactive blind tasting experience
  • Adventurous coffee offerings

Cons

  • Not enough customization
  • Best Overall Intelligentsia
  • Best Blind Tasting Driftaway Coffee
  • Best For Single-Origin Beans Counter Culture
  • Best Gift Peace Coffee
  • Other Coffee Subscriptions We Tested
  • How We Tested Coffee Subscriptions
  • Subscription Pricing
  • More Articles You Might Like

If you're the kind of person who owns a gooseneck kettle and weighs out coffee in grams, chances are you're constantly on the hunt for the best beans. That's where coffee subscriptions—like our favorite from Intelligentsia (available at Intelligentsia) —fit in. These services can deliver a constant stream of new and interesting beans right to your door, and the best of them tailor your deliveries so you’ll always get coffee you’ll love.

But there's no one-size-fits-all. Whether you prefer a specific roaster like Blue Bottle—or perhaps you want a service that collects coffee from independent roasters—you have options to choose from.

For the truly adventurous and coffee-obsessed, some services even provide blind tastings designed to help you expand your palate. All of the services below offer delicious coffee, but some definitely go above and beyond.

Four Intelligentsia bags of coffee laid out beside each other
Credit: Intelligentsia

Intelligentsia's subscription is the best option for most coffee drinkers.

Best Overall
Intelligentsia

Intelligentsia is one of the independent roasteries that have gained a cult following across the country. The brand offers a wide variety of specialty coffee in both single-origin and blend varieties, and it prides itself on freshly roasted beans.

Intelligentsia's subscription offerings are great for beginners and coffee aficionados alike. You can either choose to commit to your favorite bag of beans, or opt for one of the curated subscriptions which can help you discover your new favorite.

The Intelligentsia Classics program rotates its selection monthly so that you can taste and discover all of the brand's most popular options until you find the one. And if you're loyal to single-origin coffees, the Intelligentsia's Choice subscription will offer seasonal varieties from around the world.

From there, you can choose how often your coffee gets delivered (from weekly to monthly, or somewhere in between), the size of the bag, and whole bean versus ground. If you can't be bothered to grind your own beans, Intelligentsia offers a wide range of grind coarseness—from espresso to Chemex to percolator—to suit your chosen brewing technique.

Best of all, each bag is always roasted to order—so you can feel confident that every Intelligensia cup you brew will taste deliciously fresh.

Pros

  • Roasted to order

  • Fast shipping and delivery

  • Detailed coffee information

Cons

  • Lack of customization

Buy now at Intelligentsia

Buy now at Amazon
Four samples of coffee in front of a laptop screen showcasing a guided tasting
Credit: Driftaway Coffee

Driftaway Coffee's subscription is great for anyone interested in a blind tasting.

Best Blind Tasting
Driftaway Coffee

If you want a coffee subscription that seems to really care about you and your tastes, Driftaway is a great choice.

Setting up your subscription is easy: Unlike other services, Driftaway doesn't ask you to complete a survey or quiz to get going. Instead, your first shipment is a four-bean "tasting kit." Your feedback on those first four coffees sets your taste profile, which is then refined with ratings of subsequent coffees.

In our testing, the profile was extremely accurate. Our tester likes light, fruity but not necessarily citrusy coffee. And after their tasting kit, the first coffee they got was an Ethiopia Yirgacheffe that hit all the right notes: stone fruit, subtle spice, Earl Grey tea. Bullseye.

Driftaway is notably welcoming in other ways. We sent a question to support and got a very informative reply from one of the founders, rather than some chatbot or subcontracted CSR. And the company provides excellent tracking updates, including emails when your coffee is being roasted, when it ships, and even when it's delivered.

Both of our orders shipped within 24 hours of roasting, and we received them within four days. Driftaway is also one of the most affordable subscriptions we tested at $16 per shipment with free shipping.

Pros

  • Extremely accurate tasting notes

  • Helpful customer support

  • Affordable

Cons

  • Slow shipping

Buy now at Driftaway Coffee
A glass espresso cup filled with a shot of espresso sits next to a bag of coffee beans on a table outside.
Credit: Reviewed / Valerie Li Stack

Counter Culture is the best coffee subscription we tested.

Best For Single-Origin Beans
Counter Culture

Counter Culture is a huge name in specialty coffee. Its operation spans from wholesale to retail, allowing it to deliver their freshly roasted beans in the shortest amount of time possible with responsive customer support.

It's also transparent about its beans, with a label that includes origin (if it’s a blend, Counter Culture includes all the varieties in one bag), altitude, roasting date, and variety. Its offerings change constantly, covering a range of coffee varieties for subscribers who are looking for new beans.

The single-origin subscription is the brand's most popular option. It ships two rotating selections of single-origin beans from different areas on the globe—depending on seasonality—biweekly for an exciting exploration.

Counter Culture won't help you find your next favorite coffee, though. You can choose your blends based on the tasting notes they provide, or you can dive into a subscription that will expose you to a bunch of different varieties.

For a reasonable price, we think Counter Culture offers the best way to get fresh, single-origin beans from a coffee subscription. Just make sure you have a coffee grinder on hand—Counter Culture only offers whole beans.

Pros

  • Short off-roast time

  • Affordable

  • Transparent business practice

Cons

  • Lack of roasters selection

Buy now at Counter Culture Coffee

Buy now at Amazon
Several packets of peace coffee laid out on a white background
Credit: Peace Coffee

Peace Coffee is a great value and offers several options for gifting.

Best Gift
Peace Coffee

Peace Coffee's vibrant and fun packaging is enough to get folks excited about their daily coffee routine.

Specializing in fair-trade organic beans, Peace Coffee originally started as a nonprofit designed to support American farmers. It has since expanded into a sustainable solution to support agriculture around the world, sourcing high-quality beans from small-scale farmers.

More than just a brand with an admirable ethos, Peace Coffee produces a wide variety of roasts and blends that would suit any coffee lover. With more than a dozen options of whole-bean, custom-ground, or even coffee pods, there's something for everyone. Plus, Peace Coffee offers a Coffee Matchmaker quiz to help consumers discover their next favorite roast.

Peace Coffee is especially great for gifting because of the variety of gift sets, fun merch, and customizable subscriptions the brand offers.

Pros

  • Customizable subscriptions

  • Helpful quiz

  • Wide variety of roasts and grind types

Cons

  • No roast date provided

Buy now at Peace Coffee

Buy now at Amazon

Other Coffee Subscriptions We Tested

Product image of Angels' Cup
Angels' Cup

Angels' Cup is unlike any other subscription we tested. Rivals give you a quiz to figure out your preferences, then try to deliver coffee that suits your tastes; bags arrive with explanatory cards, tasting notes, and stories about the farmers and washing stations that produced the coffee.

These presentations can be impressive, but the information colors your opinion of the cup of coffee before you even taste it. You read "notes of tangerine" and boom, your tongue almost can't help but detect faint notes of citrus.

With Angels' Cup, your olfactory senses do the heavy lifting. If you choose the company's "Black Box" or "Cupping Flight" options, coffees arrive in sets of four black bags differentiated only by four-digit lot codes. You brew each coffee, plug the lot code into the Angels' Cup app (available for iOS and Android), and begin your tasting.

The app takes you step by step through the process, asking what aromas and flavors you can discern and your impressions of the coffee's body, acidity, and overall taste. Once you've submitted your rating, you can compare it against the roaster's own tasting notes and comments from other subscribers. The app is slickly designed, and the tasting format is a great way to develop your palate.

That's why Angels' Cup is a great gift for both burgeoning and long-time coffee lovers. It's not a great subscription if you just want to get a lot of high-quality coffee delivered to your door, but if you want to really explore what coffee can taste like, there's no other service we found that comes close to delivering the same variety or guided appreciation.

But if you would prefer a more conventional subscription, Angels' Cup can do that, too. Select the "All Stars" option and you'll get a single bag of the previous week's best coffee, as judged by other users.

Pros

  • Interactive blind tasting experience

  • Adventurous coffee offerings

Cons

  • Not enough customization

Buy now at Angels' Cup
Product image of Devoción
Devoción

Devoción is one of the newer independent roasteries that have joined the game, introducing a wide selection of Colombian coffees to North America. Like Canada-based Phil & Sebastian, Devoción sources green beans from Central and South America, in order to preserve the freshness of the beans.

In addition to roast date, Devoción also labels their green date—the time when coffee seeds outer parchment gets removed and then flown to their roastery in Brooklyn, which further indicates how fresh the beans are. For the price (between $17 to $22 per 12-ounce bag), it’s one of the best bargains we've found.

Although we appreciate the freshness, Devoción has limitations—the selection of coffees available to subscribers are Colombian only. And while we love Colombian coffee, Devoción may not be the best choice if you want to try a global assortment of beans.

Pros

  • Transparent business practice

  • High-quality coffee

Cons

  • Limited selections

Buy now at Devoción
Product image of Atlas Coffee Club
Atlas Coffee Club

Lots of coffee subscriptions have a gimmick, and Atlas Coffee Club's is actually pretty cool: Each delivery brings you a carefully selected single-origin coffee from a new country. You may have noticed that certain countries (Ethiopia and Kenya, most notably) tend to dominate the artisan coffee scene, so this is a great way to try out beans from less well-known coffee producing countries (like Mexico and Peru).

That said, the service had its downfalls. The customization options available during account setup are weak at best, only allowing you to choose between two roast options ("light to medium" and "medium to dark") and two grinds (whole bean or ground).

That's especially problematic since the grind should really be customized depending on your preferred brewing method—you wouldn't use an espresso grind in a Chemex, for example. The whole beans I got were tasty, but not among the best in the test group, and they were definitely roasted darker than I would have preferred. Atlas also doesn't provide roast dates, so there was no way to tell how old the beans were.

Pros

  • Brings coffee from less well-known regions

  • Fast shipping

Cons

  • Weak customization setup

Buy now at Atlas Coffee Club
Product image of Fellow Coffee Subscription
Fellow

From the same brand that brought us some of our favorite coffee grinders, this subscription model is curated by experts to take the stress out of shopping for good coffee. Each coffee selected for subscribers has gone through multiple rounds of experts—including three certified Q Graders (AKA the sommeliers of coffee).

That also means that this subscription is pretty hands-off, though. Before signing up, you'll choose between the Classic and Premium plan, Dark-ish and Light-ish roasts, and frequency of delivery. After that, you have to put the trust in the hands of the experts. (We will say, though, that every variety we received was fantastic and matched our preferences.)

And while you won't be able to request ground coffee (that's what Fellow's grinders are for!), Fellow does send detailed information about the appropriate way to grind and brew each coffee variety via email.

Pros

  • Expert-curated shipments

  • High-quality coffee

Cons

  • Lack of customization

  • Whole beans only

Buy now at Fellow
Product image of Blue Bottle Coffee (Single Origin Assortment, Standard Bag)
Blue Bottle Coffee

Blue Bottle is one of the best-known names in specialty coffee, and for good reason: their beans are incredibly high quality.

But unlike other services on this list, it doesn't offer an in-depth taste quiz before subscribing. You simply choose between a blend assortment, an espresso assortment, or a single-origin assortment. (There is a very in-depth 10-question quiz that helps recommend one-off purchases, however.)

That said, with the single-origin subscription, we still got delicious coffee that perfectly suited our tastes.

If you do get a coffee you don't like, you can provide feedback to adjust your taste profile. Blue Bottle simply asks you if you'd want to drink the coffee again. And you can reply with an equally simple "Yes," "Maybe," or "No." We like their prompt shipment—after placing an order, they can ship the beans on the same day they roast them.

Pros

  • High-quality coffee

  • Fast shipping

  • Roasted to order

Cons

  • No in-depth quiz

Buy now at Blue Bottle Coffee
Product image of Onyx Coffee Lab
Onyx Coffee Lab

Onyx Coffee Lab offers a flexible subscription model—you can opt to answer a quiz based on your coffee preferences, choose your own coffee, or let the experts pick the coffee for you. We liked taking the coffee quiz, which was helpful for narrowing our options. However, we also think the quiz could be improved with more detailed questions.

The downside is that Onyx subscription is a bit pricey—it’s $24 per 10-ounce bag, which is an unusual weight as most coffee is packed in 12-ounce bags. The cost adds up if your household goes through coffee quickly, like our tester’s does.

Pros

  • Interactive quiz

  • Short off-roast time

Cons

  • Pricey

Buy now at Onyx Coffee Lab
Product image of La Colombe Workshop Subscription
La Colombe

La Colombe offers a reasonably priced coffee subscription with high-quality coffee. Each month, its Workshop Subscription delivers a unique and seasonal coffee picked by La Colombe’s in-house roast experts. Regardless of the frequency a subscriber picks, they’ll receive the same single-origin coffee for the entirety of the month.

What knocked it down a few spots was its packaging. While the coffee arrived in paper boxes, beneath the paper it was packed in clear plastic, which means a shorter shelf life for the beans if exposed to light for an extended period of time.

Pros

  • Affordable

  • High quality coffee

  • Roast to order

Cons

  • Clear inner packaging can expose beans to light

Buy now at La Colombe
Product image of Lifeboost Coffee
Lifeboost

Self-proclaimed as the "healthiest coffee" on the market, Lifeboost sources its beans from shade-grown, high elevation farms and tests each batch for over 400 different toxins. It's also a naturally low-acid coffee, which means that folks with stomach issues or sensitive teeth might benefit splurging for this brand.

But as far as coffee subscriptions go, there's not a lot of customization offered here. You'll have to commit to a singular bag of beans (or box of pods) that will get delivered regularly. You can choose between different frequencies, though, and whether you prefer ground versus whole beans (but there's only one grind size available—which shouldn't actually work for all brew methods).

The subscription model is the best way to save money on this otherwise-pricey brand of coffee, though, so if you value premium beans, this might be worth trying.

Pros

  • Premium, high-quality coffee

  • Wide variety of flavors, pods, and cold brew

Cons

  • Flavors are very subtle

  • Priced at a premium

Buy now at Lifeboost
Product image of Stumptown Coffee Roasters
Stumptown

For subscription coffee, Stumptown doesn’t offer single-origin options—but their price point is still on the high end of the spectrum.

Regardless, you’ll need to pick your own coffee or choose the roaster’s pick, which isn’t helpful if you have preferences for how you like your coffee. You can’t customize the grind according to your preferred brewing method, which makes it less user-friendly. If you’re looking for blends with interesting flavor profiles, there are other more affordable options.

Pros

  • High-quality coffee

  • Roasted to order

Cons

  • Pricey

  • Limited options

Buy now at Stumptown
Product image of Bean Box Co.
Bean Box Co.

Bean Box started in Seattle, where specialty coffee shops are enjoying a boom. They source the beans from roasters in the Pacific Northwest, as they take pride in their roasting skills and expertise.

However, the shipping may take longer for subscribers who don’t live close enough to the West Coast. There are two options: Subscribers can either choose a sampler box of four 1.8-ounce bags or the 12-ounce Coffee of the Month bag, which is much more expensive than other coffee subscriptions for the same weight of coffee.

Pros

  • High-quality coffee

  • Roasted to order

Cons

  • Pricey

Buy now at Bean Box Co.
Product image of Trade Coffee Co.
Trade Coffee Co.

Trade Coffee connects subscribers with independent roasters across the country. Their focus is more on the roastmanship as opposed to the beans themselves. In our experience, some roasters include the specific varietal information and growing altitude of each bag, but some leave it blank, which means you’ll have to guess what kind of coffee you’re getting, and tasting notes can sometimes be misleading.

However, Trade Coffee may be suitable for you if your goal is to try different coffee from independent roasters before settling on one. Their lineup also includes some of the most popular roasters, like Onyx and Tandem.

Pros

  • Affordable

  • Fast shipping and delivery

Cons

  • Product quality varies

Buy now at Trade Coffee Co.

How We Tested Coffee Subscriptions

A pour-over coffee maker sits on a wooden table outside, accompanied by a bag of coffee beans and a cup filled with freshly made espresso.
Credit: Reviewed / Valerie Li Stack

We looked at off-roast time, kept logs of delivery dates, and drank lots of coffee to see which subscription service reigns supreme.

It's difficult to scientifically test the quality of coffee, since taste is ultimately subjective. With that in mind, we didn't rate these services on the quality of the coffee they delivered (although all of them delivered very good to excellent coffee, according to our palates). However, there are still plenty of factors that make some coffee subscription boxes superior to others.

Off-roast time—the amount of time that elapses between roasting and delivery—is incredibly important. Since coffee begins to lose flavor and aroma almost immediately after roasting (even in a sealed bag), quick delivery is essential if you want to taste each bean at its peak. So we kept detailed logs of roast, shipping, and delivery dates, which gave us a good picture of how quick and reliable each service is overall.

We also tested to see how customizable the subscription is, and how well it tailors subsequent deliveries to your taste. Ideally, a subscription service should learn what you like and don't like, and after a while deliver perfect matches on a regular basis. Some services go further in this regard than others, and some—like Angels' Cup—use an entirely different approach that completely bypasses user feedback.

Assorted coffee gadgets arranged on a white surface, including a coffee mug, an Aeropress coffee maker, a coffee bean grinder, a measuring spoon, and coffee bean bags.
Credit: Reviewed / Ben Keough

We got to enjoy a lot of great coffee while testing for this roundup.

Customer service is also key, so we sent a question to each company and kept track of how long it took them to respond and how polite, personable, and informative their replies were. We took stock of the instructional material included with each shipment. Some subscriptions provide only the bare-bones stats for each coffee—country, varietal, tasting notes, and altitude—while others go much deeper, detailing the stories of the farmers who grew the coffee, the history of the region, and the sourcing process.

For each subscription we tested, we signed up anonymously (to prevent the companies from treating us differently than regular customers) and received two rounds of deliveries, to ensure that the results were repeatable and to test whether the service learned from our feedback.

In our first round of testing, we considered a total of 27 different subscription services and ultimately tried seven of them, each of which take a slightly different approach to delivering fresh coffee to your doorstep. When we revisited some of the coffee subscriptions for our latest round, we compared notes from the previous testing and added nine newcomers in the ranking. In this round of testing, we narrowed it down to the 16 best subscriptions that are worth checking out.

Subscription Pricing

Pricing varies widely between subscriptions. Some offer discounted rates for customers who pay up front for a number of deliveries in advance. Others offer gift subscriptions that are sometimes (but not always!) less expensive than per-delivery orders.

Over the years, we’ve noticed some price fluctuations and updated the chart accordingly. Blue Bottle, Angels' Cup, and many other services have dropped in price, likely to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded market, whereas Driftaway and White Tale have raised their prices but have started covering shipping fees.

Single-Origin vs. Blend

A coffee subscription box opened to reveal a bag of coffee beans.
Credit: Reviewed / Valerie Li Stack

Some coffee subscription services provide detailed information about the beans.

Make no mistake, we think blends are the most economical choice when it comes to day-to-day coffee consumption. However, if you’re interested in the nuances of flavor, exploring single-origin may help you refine your palate.

If you’re paying less than $20 per 12-ounce bag, you can usually expect blends that contain more than one variety of beans. Highly graded varieties, like Bourbon, Caturra, as well as the rarest Maragogipe, will cost you a lot more money—I wouldn’t recommend consuming them on a daily basis.

Typically, the most sought-after beans are single-origin coffees with their names or growing regions labeled. Some famous varieties, such as Bourbon, are vulnerable to coffee leaf disease and therefore yield low volume—which is why they’re priced higher than the less susceptible varieties such as Caturra, Catimor, or other hybrids.

Understanding this can help you choose your coffees wisely, and to avoid overpaying for average blends.

However, some beans that are labeled as “single-origin” can be a blend, as one geographical location can grow more than one variety of coffee. To know what exactly you’re paying for, look for varieties or ask customer support for the exact varieties in the bag.

Meet the testers

Ben Keough

Ben Keough

Contributor

@ben_keough

Ben is an experienced industry journalist who formerly served as Senior Editor of News and Features at Reviewed. He now contributes as a freelance writer and editor. Most recently hailing from the vast wilds of the American southwest, he is an avid photographer who is deeply disturbed by the lack of wide open landscapes in Boston.

See all of Ben Keough's reviews
Valerie Li Stack

Valerie Li Stack

Senior Staff Writer

@

Valerie Li Stack is a senior staff writer for Kitchen & Cooking. She is an experienced home cook with a passion for experimenting with the cuisines of countries she's visited. Driven by an interest in food science, Valerie approaches the culinary scene with a firm grasp of cooking processes and extensive knowledge of ingredients. She believes food speaks to all people regardless of language and cultural background.

See all of Valerie Li Stack's reviews

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